Manchester United's Danny Welbeck says hard part is staying in first team after helping inspire win over Spurs

Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck was justifiably satisfied with his
contribution in a comfortable 3-0 win over Tottenham to open their home
campaign at Old Trafford but acknowledged the hard part will be ensuring he
keeps his first team place.

Making it permanent: Danny Welbeck knows how hard it will be to cement his place in Sir Alex Ferguson's starting line upPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

Partly through choice, partly through injuries to Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand that have presented openings, Ferguson ended up with the second-youngest team he has ever selected for a Premier League game on the pitch last night.

Yet the inexperience never showed.

Ashley Young's introduction from Aston Villa has been made far easier by the time spent with Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney on England duty.

For Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones it has merely been an extension of the England Under-21 squad, all of which they were part of during the summer.

The interesting thing now will be to see how many of that quartet are named in Fabio Capello's senior England squad for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Wales next month.

Mentally, there are no doubts over their capability to handle such responsibility, with Welbeck and Cleverley's personal friendship extending back to almost a decade.

"I have been playing with Tom since I was a young kid," said Welbeck.

"We have a good understanding and once Chris rolled the ball back to him, I knew what kind of area it was going in. Thankfully I got my head on the end of it.

"We have both been at the academy for over 10 years, so to come through and start in the Manchester United first team is a massive achievement.

"We are so grateful to all the coaches we have had throughout the youth system. We will never forget them."

Now though, they have moved on to a much higher level.

And in assessing a bench that contained Dimitar Berbatov, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick and Park Ji-sung at kick-off last night, they must realise how much faith Ferguson has in them.

"It gives us confidence when the manager picks us," said Welbeck.

"We have a great squad. There is youth and experience in abundance.

"Whoever is chosen will give it their best shot but Tom and I have shown we will work hard for the team whenever we are chosen."